The Story

Founded and led by Poplar Bluff businessman James L. Dalton, the Dalton Adding Machine Company became one of the most successful office machine manufacturers of the early twentieth century. The company produced the famous Dalton Adding Machine, one of the first commercially successful ten-key adding and calculating machines used by businesses throughout the United States and around the world.

Beginning as the Addograph Manufacturing Company, the business was later reorganized as the Dalton Adding Machine Company. A purpose-built factory was constructed in Poplar Bluff in 1909, where the machines were manufactured and shipped to an expanding international market. The company's success helped establish Poplar Bluff as an unexpected center of industrial innovation during the early 1900s.

As demand increased, the company eventually relocated manufacturing operations to Cincinnati, Ohio, where it continued to grow into a major national corporation. Following James L. Dalton's death in 1926, the company later became part of the corporate consolidation that formed Remington Rand, one of the most important office equipment and early computing companies in American history.

The Dalton Adding Machine Company is one of the few local stories that extends far beyond Butler County and connects Poplar Bluff directly to the history of modern business machines and early computing — a surprisingly powerful story that most local residents have never heard.